White powder¶
White powder is the faint chalky residue, accompanied by a "terrarium" smell, that Andrew Howard collected at the clearing where the blood trail of the Radford creature ended.
| Type | Item / evidence |
| Aliases | chalky powder; strange powder and root growth |
| Holder | Andrew Howard (collected samples); the task force |
| Status | Collected; no analysis result is ever reported |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 04 |
Description¶
Kurt loses the blood trail at a clearing near the river bank, about forty feet wide and thirty feet deep. Kurt looks up and sees no broken branches overhead, and Andre rules that a pretty big aircraft could land there without disrupting anything. Andrew rolls Investigate a Mystery (a 12 plus Sharp) and learns that there is no dog smell, but a dusty, earthy, unhealthy "terrarium" smell, and a very faint dusting of white powder with a chalky texture, concentrated exactly where the trail was lost (Radford Horror 04). Andrew collects some of it.
Properties¶
- The powder marks the place where the creature's trail ended, and the team later describes the spot as the clearing where a girl went missing. The task force connects it with the Radford Moth (Radford Horror 04).
- In Radford Horror 06 the team plots the craft's recorded headings on a map. They converge near the river, where Andre describes "saltings" of the same weird powder, though the team spots nothing else (Radford Horror 06).
- In the hidden cellar of the Whateley house, the Biz finds a fibrous, root-like growth wrapped around a floor joist, its lower end sawed off, smelling overwhelmingly of the same organic smell. The Biz proposes cutting off a sample for analysis (Radford Horror 06). Whether the root and powder are formally linked is never stated; the shared smell is what connects them.
History¶
Andrew gathered the powder in Radford Horror 04. When the team prepares evidence for handover in Radford Horror 05, Andrew lists "the chalky powder that we found at the abduction site" alongside the stolen skull and film waiting to be developed (Radford Horror 05). No lab result for the powder or the root is ever given.